Corporate social responsibility in junior and mid-tier resources companies operating in developing nations – beyond the public relations offensive

Margaret Lyons, Jennifer Bartlett and Paula McDonald

Resources Policy, 2016, vol. 50, issue C, 204-213

Abstract: This study explores how junior and mid-tier resources companies operating in the world's most impoverished countries understand and practice corporate social responsibility (CSR), and its relationship to their assumed social licence to operate (SLO). The study drew on emergent research that finds smaller companies, which are less subject to scrutiny by external stakeholders such as NGOs, media and investors, understand and practice CSR differently to the multinational companies which have dominated extant research. The study found that CSR meaning and practice in this large, but little researched, group of companies was highly context-based and community focused, in marked contrast to the strategies and practices of larger resources companies operating in developing nations. Importantly, the study also revealed striking contradictions and ambiguities between participants’ CSR actions and accountability and their assumed SLO.

Keywords: Australian junior companies; Australian mid-tier companies; Corporate Social Responsibility; Developing nations; Institutional theory; Legitimacy; Social licence to operate; Resources sector (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jrpoli:v:50:y:2016:i:c:p:204-213

DOI: 10.1016/j.resourpol.2016.10.005

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